Be Careful What You Wish For Read online

  “You ungrateful little wretch!” Breena’s pink eyes flashed. “Just wait until your next birthday wish! I’ll make you sorry you were ever born in the first place!”

  “You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Jake said dryly. “You no longer have any power to affect Cassandra magically. She broke your hold over her when she broke the curse her wish had become.”

  “Oh, you…” For a minute Breena appeared to be too angry to get out another word. “You might think you’ve gotten away with disrespecting me,” she burst out at last. “But your little sister is still my client and I happen to know her birthday is coming up very soon!”

  Jake’s face grew stern.

  “As a matter of fact, Aurora is also my client. Are you actually threatening to cause her harm? That is a direct violation of the Fairy Godmother Code of Conduct!”

  “I don’t care!” Breena snapped. She glared at Cass. “Your old fairy godmother was right—you girls are just spoiled little half-breed brats and you need to be taught a lesson!”

  And with that, she disappeared in a puff of choking pink smoke.

  Cass turned to Jake, concerned.

  “Do you think she’d really try to hurt Rory just to get back at me?”

  “No, of course not,” Jake said grimly. “Because I’m going before the judge to have her license revoked and get a new fairy godmother appointed to your little sister at once. Aurora—”

  “Cass? Counselor O’Shea?”

  Cass looked up and saw her little sister standing at he top of the stairs.

  “Rory?” she said, frowning. She turned to Jake and murmured, “How is she awake when everyone else is still, er…frozen?” She waved a hand at the frozen tableau still crowding the living room.

  All of the living art had shrunk to its original size and number—meaning there was one of everything now instead of triplicates. Also, it was no longer living—all the statues had gone back to their stands and the paintings had climbed back into their frames. The Brandon clones were gone as well which left only Cass’s family, Lady Blankenship and her crowd, and the naked seniors. Brandon himself was gone—he must have left after Cass had broken up with him, she speculated.

  All in all, the living room was still a fairly strange sight, but not nearly as chaotic and dangerous as it had been before Jake had frozen everyone.

  But how had Rory escaped being frozen in the stasis spell along with everyone else, even their fairy godmother?

  Jake frowned, clearly as perplexed as Cass was.

  “I don’t know why she wasn’t caught by my spell,” he said under his breath. Addressing Rory, he said, “Aurora, are you all right?”

  “He’s gone…” Rory’s normally cheerful face looked drawn and worried. “One minute we were sitting on my bed talking and the next minute…he vanished. Do you think he’s all right?”

  “Who?” Cass asked, and then she remembered. “Oh no—she means the Phooka guy.”

  “Daegan.” There was a grim look on Jake’s face. “He must have been thrown back to the Realm of the Fae when your housekeeping spell put everything to rights and the warding around the house was restored,” he told Cass. “And a good thing too—he’s dangerous.”

  “He’s not dangerous!” Rory came downstairs quickly, her cheeks bright pink with protective anger. “He’s kind and good! And we were just getting to know each other.”

  “I’m afraid Daegan’s company is a pleasure you will have to forego,” Jake growled, frowning. “Phookas are an untrustworthy lot to begin with and he is one of the worst.”

  “What? So you’re forbidding me to see him?” Rory demanded, her cheeks getting even pinker. “You can’t do that! I’m almost nineteen—I’m an adult.”

  “In the human world, maybe,” Jake said. “But in the Realm of the fae, you are scarcely more than an infant. I have been charged with your wellbeing and protection and I swear to you that I will keep you safe, even from your own misguided desires.”

  “Misguided desires? I just want to get to know him!” Rory exclaimed. “Is that so much to ask? I…” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I feel drawn to him. You don’t understand.”

  “Oh, I do understand,” Jake said grimly. “You very foolishly formed a bond with him when you used your tears to heal him the first time I took you and your sisters to the Realm of the Fae. But you have to understand, Aurora—”

  “Oh, I understand…” Rory’s voice was trembling. “I understand that you hate him because of what he is—just the way the full-blooded fairies hate us for what we are. Daegan can’t help it he was born a Phooka! And you can’t keep us apart forever.”

  Dashing tears from her emerald-green eyes, she ran back up the stairs. Then the door to her room slammed and Cass heard sobbing coming from inside.

  Troubled, she looked at Jake.

  “Oh dear, that’s not like Rory at all. She’s usually so happy and bubbly!”

  “I’m afraid allowing the Phooka to enter your house was a grave mistake.” Jake sighed. “And his magic must be exceptionally strong if he was able to keep himself and your sister protected from my stasis spell. It’s not a good sign.”

  “Crap.” Cass felt horrible. “This is all my fault! If I hadn’t let Glorianna and her monochrome boy toy fool me—”

  “You weren’t to know Daegan was a Phooka,” Jake interrupted her. “After all, you had only seen him in his animal form before. How could you possibly recognize his human form?”

  Cass thought of the flashes she had caught through the shifting, dancing ball. The glimpses of glossy black mane and apple-bright eye. But how could she have known those were all Daegan?

  Of course, it didn’t matter—even if it was completely impossible for her to have known she was bringing home a man who was dangerous to her little sister, she still felt guilty about the outcome.

  “Will Rory be okay?” she asked Jake anxiously. “I feel like I’ve put her in an awful lot of danger tonight—first pissing off the current FG and now the whole Phooka thing.”

  “She will be well in time,” Jake said. He ran a hand through his hair. “She’s simply…going through a kind of withdrawal right now.”

  “Withdrawal?” Cass exclaimed. “What are you talking about? You think he gave her some kind of drug?”

  “No, but Aurora formed a soul bond with Daegan when her tears saved his life and he probably spent every moment trying to strengthen it while he was here,” Jake explained. “A bond like that draws the two who are bonded together—it creates a vacuum—an emptiness in the heart when the they are separated.”

  Cass remembered the awful, empty feeling she’d had when she thought Jake didn’t love her and felt even worse.

  “But that’s terrible!” she exclaimed. “Are we absolutely sure Rory can’t be with him? I mean, is he really such a bad guy just because he’s a Phooka?”

  “Cassandra…” Jake took her by the shoulders and looked earnestly into her eyes. “I am not trying to separate your sister from Daegan out of some misguided sense of prejudice. Please believe me when I tell you this—he is dangerous—a killer. His own people exiled him for murder.”

  “Oh…” Cass felt her mouth go dry. “Crap,” she muttered. “I should have known you’d have a good reason not to let her see him. I just didn’t realize…”

  “Never mind.” Jake sighed. “I know it seems harsh but we need to have Aurora’s best interests in mind. And though it will take some time, her heart will heal from the bond.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Cass muttered. Seeing her normally bubbly little sister so upset and knowing she was to blame for Rory’s pain made her feel awful.

  “In the meantime…” Jake clapped his hands. “We need to sort things out at your art showing. Do you want me to lay a memory charm on the humans here so that they forget the magical things they witnessed?”

  Cass frowned. “You know, I don’t think so. Right up until the art tripled itself and started growing so huge, Lady Blankenship was really kind of